Ghost
by safelystowed
Summary: A nuclear physicist on conference in Oxford is ruthlessly killed. Morse has an encounter with a certain Hydra assassin.


Something was happening.

Morse shrugged off his damp coat as he entered Cowley police station, a couple of rivulets of cold water running down his neck as he adjusted his tie and glanced at the papers he had left on his desk the night before. The atmosphere in the room was slightly more tense than usual. There was more bustling to-and-fro, more phones piercing the air with their shrill rings and a greater than usual number of uniformed police officers mingling at the front of the station. Cups of cold tea were left undrunk on stacks of paper, the blackboard had been brushed clean and someone had put a box of fresh pins near the evidence board.

Something was definitely happening.

Almost immediately as soon as Morse sat down at his desk, Jakes came striding up, his coat on and a customary cigarette hanging from his lip.

"Don't get too comfortable. We've got a triple."

"A triple murder?"

"Shot dead in cold blood, apparently. Where's the boss?"

"He went in to see Bright." Morse stood up and pulled his coat back on. From the dim sound of pattering on the roof over their heads it was evident the rain hadn't ceased. He wished he hadn't forgotten his umbrella. "Who was killed?"

"Some scientist chap." Jakes began to do up his coat buttons as Thursday emerged from Bright's office. "Political connections, I gather. Not sure who the other two are."

"There's quite a crowd gathering at the scene," Thursday said, turning up his collar over his scarf. "We'd best get over there as soon as possible."

Outside, thick black clouds straggled across the grey sky with a steady stream of rain and the odd rumble of thunder. The occasional flashes of lighting did little to light up the dim shadows that cast a gloom over most of Oxford. If anything, the rain had gotten heavier, and even with the windscreen wipers on at full blast Morse couldn't drive any faster than a crawl. As they stopped at a red light, Jakes started tapping on the door handle impatiently.

"Everything's going to wash away at this point," he mumbled, glancing at his watch.

The light turned green and Morse pressed the accelerator down cautiously. Up ahead, they could see a large collection of umbrellas bustling on a corner, being forcibly held back by very wet, mackintoshed uniforms. Strange came almost running as soon as they pulled up, flipping open a large black umbrella and passing it to Thursday. "The tent's set up, round there." He shook his head and a couple of raindrops bounced over the brim of his helmet. "Debryn's almost finished."

As soon as Morse stepped out of the car, he spied Dorothea Frazil lingering on the edge of the eager crowd. She raised her eyebrows in greeting and immediately came over.

"Not now, Ms Frazil," he said firmly, holding up a hand as soon as she approached him. "We haven't even seen the body yet."

"You mean the _bodies_," she replied grimly, shifting her umbrella over to shelter Morse as well as herself. "One of my newspaper boys made the discovery. Does this mean we get an inside scoop?"

"We'll see. Do you know anything about the victims?"

"People are saying it's a Dr Victor Barsukov, Russian defector and prominent nuclear physicist. He's only visiting in Oxford, as far as I know. Some conference or other going on at the moment. Don't they brief coppers properly any more?"

"It was all rather sudden. I'll speak to you later." Morse pushed his way through the crowd to catch up with Thursday and Jakes, ignoring the calls and questions that were thrown in his direction. He rounded the corner to enter a small alleyway which, as far as he could remember, resulted in a dead end. The entire middle section was obscured by a dark green tent, the door of which was being solidly guarded by Strange.

"There you go matey." Strange pulled back the tent's front flap and Morse ducked inside, immediately running into Thursday's back. There wasn't a great deal of room. He peered over Thursday's shoulder, earning himself a stomach-churning view of the three victims strewn across the pavement. He drew in a deep breath and tried not to think of the type of puddle he was likely standing in. There was blood, lots of blood, pink and diluted and pooling around the bodies so that it wasn't even clear whom it came from. Max Debryn was crouched carefully beside the middle, face-down body, the corners of his jacket carefully tucked up over his knees so that they didn't drag on the ground.

"Lad on newspaper delivery came across them about an hour ago when he was riding past the alley," Thursday explained. "The one in the middle has been identified as Dr Victor Barsukov. We don't know who the other two are, but that one on the left was carrying a pistol and seems to be some sort of security guard."

Jakes side-stepped a little to the left. "Want a better view?" he asked, motioning to the spot in front of him. Morse tried not to grimace. "It's fine, er, I can see from where I am." He diverted his eyes to Debryn who stood up slowly, pulling off his gloves. "What do you think?"

"Gunshot wounds, all of them. A large calibre weapon seems to have done the damage. It seems our killer simply fired at them until they fell and he, or she, was sure they were dead."

"Time of death?"

"I'd say sometime between 10pm and 12am last night. Before the rain, although the relative shelter provided by the walls of this street stopped everything from getting _too_ wet."

"At which end of the street was the shooter standing?" Morse asked.

"Based on the way they fell, our shooter would have been down that end." Debryn motioned towards the back of the tent.

"Street's a dead end," Thursday observed. "The killer must have been waiting for them. Knew they'd come down this way."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he had some sort of elevated angle, shooting down rather than horizontally at them. I'll know more when I get them back to the morgue." Debryn clipped shut his leather bag. "Photographs of everything will be sent on to you, as per usual."

"Right." Thursday turned and opened the tent flap. "I'll return to the station and follow up on this Dr Bursakov, see if we can get in touch with where he was staying and ID these other two fellows. You two scope out the area and see if you can find any witnesses. With shots like those, someone must have heard something."

Out in the alley, only a light drizzle made it down to where Jakes and Morse were standing. The storm seemed to have eased slightly, but most of the rain was shielded away by the tall, brick walls that rose up on either side. The alley's main purpose was to open onto the back doors of shops that looked out over larger streets to the right and left, and it was just wide enough for a lorry to pass through. Curtained windows above the bare back walls revealed the presence of residential flats. Someone could easily have looked out and seen the shooting happen right before their eyes.

It didn't take long for the tent to be dismantled and the bodies to be carefully taken away. Morse wandered down to the end of the alley, which was empty save for a couple of wooden crates, and gazed at the heavy, stone slabs that made up the end wall.

"Any idea what's on the other side?" he asked Jakes, who had come up behind him. He tilted his head backwards but couldn't see anything over the top of the wall that rose a head or two above him.

"Not a clue." Jakes pulled a couple of the crates over and stacked them up, testing their stability gingerly with one foot before climbing on top. He was just able to peer over the top of the wall. "Some sort of courtyard here. Potted plants and such. I think it leads onto an antique shop on the other side."

Morse frowned. "Debryn mentioned the shooter might have been higher up."

Jakes cocked his fingers in the shape of a gun and pointed down the alley. "Not a great deal of height from these crates," he said, jumping back down. "Unless he was a cat and was standing on top of the wall. One side each?"

Morse was able to glean little information from the row of shops he took charge of. None of the shops' employees had been around at that time of night, and only two of the flats above them were occupied. In the first lived an elderly man who was almost completely deaf. He'd been sound asleep, and hadn't heard a thing. No, he hadn't seen anyone strange lurking about, neither on the road nor in the adjacent rooms. No, he hadn't heard of a Dr Bursakov. He was sorry, laddie, but he couldn't be of any help.

The last flat on Morse's list was opened by a young, blonde woman with a chubby toddler balancing on her hip, a Mrs Hendricks. She showed Morse into her kitchen that overlooked the alley. He pushed aside the curtains and peered out of the window. Her flat was second from the end, and he could see over the wall at the end of the alley and into the courtyard Jakes had described. It did indeed seem to be connected to some sort of antique shop, with a variety of stone and porcelain pots and statues laid out on paving stones amid numerous plants and a couple of garden benches. The square yard was surrounded by the wall on one side, the antique shop on the opposite side, and the tiled roofs of adjacent buildings on the last two.

"Did you hear anything unusual last night, Mrs Hendricks?" Morse turned back from the window.

Mrs Hendricks shrugged. She put her son down on the floor, where he rapidly crawled directly to a shelf and started pulling out books, and began filling up the kettle. "I stayed up late waiting for my husband, he often has nights at the factory, and heard shouting down below at around 11."

Morse pricked up his ears and quickly noted down the time. "So you heard gunshots then?"

"No, no gunshots. Nothing except shouting. It sounded like a man."

"Did you hear what was said?"

"Not really, it was more just a yell, and maybe a bit of scuffling. It quietened down almost immediately."

"Did you think to call the police?"

"It's not unusual to have the odd noisy person wander down there. There are a couple of pubs nearby, and sometimes there are rows. I just lock the door and wait for Tim to come home."

"I see." Morse pocketed his notepad and took a quick glance around the room. The furniture was old, but neat, with little homely touches such as a sprig of rosemary hanging above the door and some china cats on the shelves drawing attention away from the cracked wallpaper and patches of damp visible just below the ceiling. "Are you sure you heard no shots fired? No cracks, or bangs, or anything of the sort?"

"Not a thing."

"What about the other residents of this street? Do you talk to any of them?"

"There's Mr Morris a couple of doors down." Mrs Hendricks was momentarily distracted by the sounds of ripping paper, and hurried to retrieve a magazine from her toddler's hands. He promptly screwed up his eyes and began to wail. She absently passed him a rag teddy, before the kettle started to whistle, adding to the cacophony bouncing around the small room. She raised the volume of her voice. "I go over for a cup of tea now and then, to keep him company, but we mostly keep to ourselves."

"Well, thank you for your time Mrs Hendricks." Morse pulled out a card and passed it to her. "If you remember anything at all, please don't hesitate to contact me."

Leaving her in the clamorous apartment, Morse descended the narrow steps back to the main road, mulling over what he had learnt. Yells, but no gunshots. He emerged onto the main street and hurried back around the block to the alley, passing the crowd which had thinned after the removal of the bodies, seemingly proportional to the degree of rain which had slowed and by now almost stopped. Shafts of weak sunlight were beginning to make their way down to ground level. Jakes was waiting for him on the corner.

"Any luck?"

"None, really." Morse shoved his hands in his pockets, pursing his lips. "One lady heard yells, but no gunshots. That places the shooting at around 11pm."

"That's pretty much all I got as well. Two people heard shouting sometime between 10:30 and 11:00pm. No one heard gunshots or thought there was anything suspicious."

"Could such an effective gun suppressor have been used that nothing was heard at all?"

Jakes shrugged. "There's no other explanation. We should head back and see how the boss went."

"I'd like to speak to the owner of the antique shop first."

"Whatever for?"

"If the killer did shoot his victims from the wall, he may have passed through the courtyard first."

"You don't seriously believe that he sat _on top_ of the wall to pop off his victims." Jakes' face took on an all-to-familiar look of incredulity. Nevertheless, he reluctantly followed Morse around to the front of the antique shop, which was just being opened by a short, rotund man. He let them examine his courtyard, where they discovered some smashed porcelain in a corner just beneath the wall. It was a small bird house, he said, that had been hooked rather loosely over the wall. He wouldn't have been surprised if the wind had simply blown it off. It was old, and of little value anyway. Morse carefully noted the position at which it had hung.

They met up with Thursday in the pub for lunch, swapping results over ale and sandwiches.

"Victor Bursakov has been living in America since the war," Thursday explained as he unwrapped the wax paper covering his sandwiches. "Apparently he's made a series of quite significant discoveries, all very hush hush. This is his first time in England. He came to present some of his findings to a restricted group of authorised scientists. They wouldn't tell me what about, but I believe it involves a weapon. The other two men with him have been identified as Martin Dale, his secretary, and George Summerson, who was acting as a sort of general security guard."

"So it was an assassination then?" Morse tipped the last dregs of beer into his mouth.

"Almost certainly. Debryn called to say that a closer examination of photographs from the crime scene and preliminary post mortems suggest that most of the shots would have been fired at Bursakov himself. The other two just got in the way."

"What about the gun used? No one in the area heard any shots fired."

"Tests on the bullets and casings retrieved are forthcoming. For such a large firearm, he'd have needed quite a sophisticated set up to suppress all the noise."

Jakes picked up their empty glasses and made to stand up. "So what's next?"

"There's a job for you two back at the station." Thursday stood up and pulled on his coat. "Bursakov's colleague, Dr Maxim Fellows, is being assigned to a safe house for precautions. You can drive him there later this afternoon."

"Do you think he'll be targeted as well?" Morse asked.

"The two worked closely together. Dr Fellows is the only other person who can present Bursakov's work in full. He leaves for London tomorrow."

Back at the station, Morse was introduced to Dr Fellows, a man in his late fifties with greying ginger hair and piercing blue eyes that were constantly squinting through gold pince-nez balanced on the bridge of his very tall nose. He was a soft-spoken man with a faint Scottish accent, clearly shaken from the news of the deaths, and prone to fiddling.

"Is there any reason people would want your work kept back?" Morse asked as he passed Fellows a cup of tea and sat down in a chair opposite him.

"Oh many people, many people." Fellows picked up his cup with a shaking hand, and quickly put it back down. "You make enemies when you work in nuclear science."

"Anyone in particular?"

"Half a dozen countries, I'd say." Fellows rubbed his nose and ripped a corner off the newspaper in his lap. He began to roll the piece around absently between his fingers. "Our work would provide a distinct advantage to any nation in terms of weaponry. We are, of course, not quite ready to reveal it yet to anyone. This conference was supposed to be a sort of taster, to go over some of the finer details with our international colleagues."

"Do you know why Victor Bursakov, Martin Dale and George Summerson would be out walking so late at night, or why they would enter a dead-end alley?"

"Victor was always wandering. He never thought clearer than when his legs were moving, he always said." Fellows sighed, and ripped off another strip of newspaper. "I wouldn't be surprised if they simply got lost. Oxford is confusing in the dark. So many streets at so many different angles. Completely illogical set-up."

"George Summerson was a security guard?"

"In a way. We thought it would be quiet here, weren't expecting any confrontation. Summerson mostly kept the, well, _protestors_ at bay, back at home."

"Did Dr Bursakov have any personal enemies?"

"None that I know of. He has no surviving family. Started a new life when he moved to America. His work was his life."

Late in the afternoon, Morse received a phone call from Strange informing him of the safe house location. He took the driver's seat while Jakes sat in the back of the car with Fellows. For a while, they drove in complete silence. Lacking paper, Fellows started to pull on a loose thread on the edge of his jumper. From glances in the rear view mirror Morse watched the thread become steadily longer and longer until it snagged and threatened to rip a hole.

"You don't think anything will happen tonight, do you?" Fellows finally asked, winding the thread around his thumb.

"Unlikely." Morse couldn't help feeling relieved at Jakes' answer. Although he'd doubted any dramatic encounters with assassins would occur, he couldn't help feeling slightly nervous at the thought of driving a potentially wanted man halfway across the city.

"You've been at the station, so no one knows what you've been doing all day," Jakes continued. "And no one knows where we're going."

"That's good, very good." Fellows resumed his search for a new thread. _He'll have no jumper left by the end of this trip_, Morse thought to himself.

After half an hour they finally pulled up in front of a non-descript house in a quiet, suburban part of Oxford, just as the first tinges of pink began to creep into the sky. It was a quiet road, with only a faint rustle of leaves and the odd twitter of a bird going to roost early. Morse got out first, double checking the brass house number on the front gate to make sure they'd come to the right place. Strange was nowhere in sight, although he was undoubtedly keeping watch somewhere. Morse walked around to the back door and pulled it open.

_BANG!_

The gunshot burst through the air with a mighty crack, causing Morse to instinctively throw himself to the ground, simultaneously pushing Fellows down below the shelter of the car.

There was another shot, louder this time, with a clang as the bullet bounced off the car's metal frame, and then three more. It was coming from his left, behind some parked cars. He could hear Jakes swearing, jumping out of the other door and running around to pull Fellows to the ground.

"He's bleeding out!" Jakes yelled, pressing down hard on Fellow's chest, and Morse suddenly noticed the patch of bright red slowly soaking through that ever-shrinking jumper. The man himself was looking pale, very pale, and Morse wasn't even sure if he was still alive.

"Stay with him!" Morse stumbled to his feet and ran around to the bonnet of the car, ignoring Jakes' protests. He could see a dark figure sprinting away from the parked cars. Although deep down in his mind he knew it was a foolish thing to do- he was unarmed and the man possessed a gun as well as accuracy- he gave chase.

Racing to the end of the road, he skidded around the corner. Up ahead, he could see the shooter bolting down the road, so fast he could almost feel the shudder of his footsteps every time his feet pounded the path. The man was tall, well-built with dark hair swinging round his neck, and dressed in black except for his left arm, which appeared to reflect light in a most unusual way as it swung beside him. Taking a deep breath, Morse dashed after him.

Without warning, the man suddenly turned a corner and swung himself over a wall about 6 feet high, his left hand clinging to it long enough for Morse to see it encased in some sort of bright, silver metal, a glimpse of a red star patched on the shoulder. He paused for a split second on the precipice before leaping down over the other side.

Morse jumped up, grabbing the rough edge with both arms and hauling himself up, feet scrabbling against the stone, trying to get a better grip. By the time he swung over, the man had reached the end of the road and was rounding another corner. He jumped down, ankles jarring painfully on the concrete, running as fast as his legs would carry him. He turned the corner, summoning all his energy to sprint.

Casually, calmly, the man suddenly stopped and swung around, and Morse found himself running directly towards him. His blood ran cold, for the man's face was enveloped in a dark mask with thick goggles over his eyes. His jaw was set with grim, single-minded determination as he lifted up the gun that had been hanging over his shoulder.

Morse had only a split second to come to his senses and dive behind some bags of rubbish before the gunshots whistled over his ears. Splinters burst out of the picket fence behind him and one of the bags hissed as it was pierced, sending the pungent aroma of old food wafting through the air.

He rammed his hands against his forehead to stop his head pounding, willing his heart to slow down, and when he pulled his fingers away there was blood, trickling down the side of his face.

Grazed. He'd only been grazed.

For a moment, his head spun wildly and the ground seemed to float towards him. Leaning against the fence, he sat still for a moment, waiting for the wave of panic to wash away and gradually becoming aware of the silence that had sunk down over the street. There were no gunshots. No rustling trees. No birds.

Nothing.

* * *

"Morse!" Jakes' voice snapped Morse back to attention, and he cautiously stood up, brushing himself down. The shooter was gone. Jakes was running down the path from the direction in which the killer had gone, in a state of the greatest disarray Morse had seen him in, his suit splattered with blood. "Fellows is dead," he said simply.

Morse ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. "Did you see where he went? The killer. I saw him. He had a mask."

"I haven't seen anything."

"Where are the uniforms?"

"Strange is with Fellows. There are a whole handful of others scouting the area, _armed_. If he's still around, they'll catch him."

His mind in a whirl, Morse returned to the car with Jakes just in time to see Strange solemnly pull a blanket over Fellows' body. "It's a bad business, matey," he said gently.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, Morse could feel frustration as well as _guilt _wash over his throbbing temples like waves crashing on a rocky shore. They'd been close, so close. He'd depended on them. How had the shooter known where they'd gone?

More importantly, who was he?

A feeling of dread suddenly overwhelmed every other emotion flooding his brain. The way the man had streaked away, effortlessly scaling walls, moving in an almost inhuman manner, before disappearing in broad daylight. The nerve he had shown in appearing, armed and disguised, in suburban Oxford without any attempts to hide. The cold and calculated manner with which he had pointed the barrel of his gun at Morse's face and calmly showered him in a rain of bullets. _Who was he?_

* * *

Morse had a pounding headache the next morning when he dragged himself into work, a soaring crescendo in his mind punctuated by regular crashes of cymbals. He sat down slowly, staring at his typewriter. He'd had little sleep the night before, his mind constantly turning over the afternoon's events, replaying the image of the running, jumping, faceless figure that he'd glimpsed. No trace, the uniforms had found. Not a single footprint or skid mark. The man had gone, vanished like a ghost.

He was halfway through typing a report when Bright, who had been holed up in his office all day, came over to his desk, standing before him and seeming to contemplate him for a minute or two before finally speaking.

"We're off the case, Morse," he said calmly. "All files on my desk in the next half hour, please."

Morse was incredulous. This was by far the most public display of brute violence he'd encountered. Worse still, the perpetrator was still out there. He'd seen him. He'd looked into his eyes, or at least the black shades of where his eyes would have been if it hadn't been for the mask he was wearing. They couldn't just let it slide. "By whose orders?" He could barely keep the insolence out of his voice.

Bright pursed his lips, sighing slightly to himself and adopting a now habitual look of irritation at Morse's seeming inability to follow orders without questioning them.

"That's none of your concern," he said bluntly. "Autopsy reports, witness statements, photographs, anything related to the Bursakov case is to be given to me. Once that is done there is no shortage of traffic reports that need to be attended to."

As soon as Bright left, Morse stood up and went straight into Thursday's office, knocking hastily on the door before bursting in without waiting for a response.

"What's all this about?" he demanded.

Thursday was calmly sitting behind his desk, filling his pipe with tobacco. He looked thoughtful, but at the same time his face held a certain stony expression that tended to appear now and then, usually when he was thinking about the war. He paused and looked up, raising an eyebrow, possibly as silent reprimand for Morse's rudeness, before turning back to his pipe.

"The world's a big place Morse," he said, "and we're small fry in the grand scheme of things. Now I know everything's been very sudden, but you're just going to have to be satisfied with the fact that other higher authorities exist, and that they will be taking on this case."

"But what about Fellows? Doesn't he deserve justice? And will these 'higher authorities' be keeping Oxford safe from the killer who so easily escaped our clutches?"

"This was without a doubt a narrowly targeted assassination attempt aimed at suppressing whatever information Bursakov and Fellows were working on. Now that they have been silenced the killer has no reason to return. As for justice, in an international case like this it's best to leave it to those with resources and manpower enough to handle it."

Morse was still unconvinced, and evidently looked it for Thursday paused again and smiled kindly at him. "Don't beat yourself up about it, Morse. There was nothing you could do to stop that man yesterday, or to save Fellows. Just remember that."

* * *

Max Debryn walked leisurely down the corridors of the Radcliff, pulling on his lab coat and contemplating with satisfaction the full English breakfast he had just enjoyed. Swinging open the doors of the morgue, he stopped suddenly at the sight of the empty silver bench where the sheeted body of Maxim Fellows should have been lying. Instead, Fellows was nowhere to be seen and a strange woman was standing beside his tray of dissecting equipment. She was just clipping shut a black suitcase in which Debryn had spied what he strongly suspected to be a patient file.

"May I ask what you are doing?" he said, pleasantly but on high alert for any funny business.

The woman looked up. She was dressed in a smart black suit and had immaculately dressed dark auburn hair with a few streaks of grey. Debryn judged her to be around 50 years of age. Her mouth smiled courteously as she extended a hand, although her eyes were fixed critically on Debryn's.

"My name is Agent Carter." Her voice was clear, confident, her handshake firm. "I am here to inform you that the body of Dr Maxim Fellows has been confiscated under the authority of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. You are not to inquire after it. You are not to report this incident as theft. Any information gleaned from the autopsies you performed yesterday on Victor Bursakov, Martin Dale and George Summerson are not to be passed on to any other individual. I have taken the patient files and all other copies will by this time have been destroyed. As far as you are concerned, these four victims never passed between the doors of this hospital."

For the first time in his life, Debryn was at a loss for words. He could only turn his head and stare as Carter wished him good morning and promptly left the room, leaving him standing alone, in silence.

* * *

Morse glumly dropped the file of case papers on Bright's desk. He was just about to leave the room when the corner of a freshly typed document that had been covered with a deliberately placed rack of envelopes caught his eye. All he saw were 5 letters.

S.H.I.E.L.D

What was _S.H.I.E.L.D_? How was it connected to their killer?

Morse never found out the answers to either question.

**Notes: **I thought it would be a cool idea if the Winter Soldier was active during the Endeavour period and if SHIELD was somehow involved in one of Morse's cases. Thanks for reading :)


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